Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting is now a critical element in communicating a company's social and environmental policies to the investment community and other stakeholder populations.

CSR reporting refers to what is also known as triple bottom line reporting, by which companies report social, economic an environmental performance.

This dissertation focuses on the evaluation of the CSR reporting of the Co-operative Group Food Retail division; through the analysis of the integrated Co-operative Group CSR report and the revision of other means by which this division reports CSR performance. Furthermore a benchmarking process that compares the Co-operative Group's CSR report against other CSR reports of the main competitors of the Cooperative Group Food Retail division, and leaders in CSR reporting within the food retail sector, is also developed. The objective of this benchmarking process is to draw recommendations to improve the Co-operative Group Food Retail division CSR reporting.

The research in this study establishes that an ideal CSR report has to have the characteristics of completeness, showing the entire operations of the organisation and all significant aspects of impact related with them. Secondly, credibility through the presentation of evidence that the organisation has the structures and processes in place to enable the organisation to accurately present information on its impacts; as well as evidence that, internal systems and information have been tested and the views of external parties have been incorporated into the report, including stakeholder interactions. Finally, a CSR report has to be well communicated taking into consideration the suitability of the media by which the CSR report is communicated to its declared target audiences.

The information for this research was obtained mainly from the 12 weeks internship I did in the area of Social Goals at the Co-operative Group and also a broad range of resources such as e-journals, articles, books and internet.

Food retail businesses may find this work useful, as it provides a detailed framework to evaluate a CSR report and wide information about how leaders in the food retail sector are developing their CSR reports.